Gardaí are searching for 34-year-old John Gallagher, who is missing from the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum. He has been detained at the hospital since 1988 for shooting his girlfriend and her mother dead in the grounds of Sligo General Hospital. It is understood that he failed to return to the hospital last night after a social outing. The director of the hospital said that Mr Gallagher is no longer suffering from mental illness and therefore no longer a danger.
Mr Gallagher has been allowed out to work for the last two years and had been given increasing levels of freedom, in preparation for his eventual discharge. Mr Gallagher killed his girlfriend Ann Gillespie and her mother Annie in September 1988. The family has been advised that he is now missing.
